Steve Gibons travels through rural Romania
searching for music and people.

What I actually did in Bucharest

17 October, 2005

The main thing I had to do in Bucharest was to meet with Speranta Radulescu, an ethnomusicologist who has been studying Romanian folk music for decades. I already had some info from the Venerable Bob Cohen of the Dinaye Kapelye, and it was he who suggested I see her. I met her at her office and presented her with the offering of some cassettes I had heard she was interested in, Jewish music from Bucovina, mainly, from the early 1900s. I hoped she would give me village names and information on people I might be interested in. She was extremely gracious, inviting me to her home where we discussed everything from the political situation in the USA (apocolyptic) the communist regime in Romania. She gave me a few hints on places to go, and a couple names and addresses which would later bear great fruit.

My friend Liviu Marculescu, a trombone player I met on my last trip here played in a concert with the great Romanian blues singer A.G. Weinberger. The concert was great, A.G. is a great showman, you should see him the next time you get over to Romania. He lived in Chicago for a while and played at the Kingston Mines, Rosa's, and other blues clubs in town. What small world.
Mihai took me to see the RADU Simion Concert at Caru Cu Bere, a famous restaurant with fatastic ornamentation and arched ceilings where I had a chat with with violinst NITU Sorin, one of Zisu (Mihai) Gutulan's best friends. Nicolae Feraru, Mihai and Sorin played and recorded in the RADU group in the seventies and eighties. They toured in something like forty different countries. The photo below is of Strada Stavropoleos on the way to the restaurant.